page_title: History of the Falkland Islands
section_title: Argentine incursions
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Falkland Islands / Twentieth century / Argentine incursions
caption_attribution_description: English: Miguel L. Fitzgerald (b. 1926), Irish-Argentine serial flyer to Falklands/Malvinas Islands in 1964, 1968
context_page_description: The history of the Falkland Islands goes back at least five hundred years, with active exploration and colonisation only taking place in the 18th century. Nonetheless, the Falkland Islands have been a matter of controversy, as they have been claimed by the French, British, Spaniards and Argentines at various points.
  The islands were uninhabited when discovered by Europeans. France established a colony on the islands in 1764. In 1765, a British captain claimed the islands for Britain. In early 1770 a Spanish commander arrived from Argentina with five ships and 1,400 soldiers forcing the British to leave Port Egmont. Britain and Spain almost went to war over the islands, but the British government decided that it should withdraw its presence from many overseas settlements in 1774. Spain, which had a garrison at Puerto Soledad on East Falklands, administered the garrison from Montevideo until 1811 when it was compelled to withdraw by pressures resulting from the Peninsular War. In 1833, the British returned to the Falkland Islands. Argentina invaded the islands on 2 April 1982. The British responded with an expeditionary force that forced the Argentines to surrender.
context_section_description: With the exception of an attempt by President Juan Perón to buy the Falkland Islands in 1953 which was rejected as inconceivable by the British government, the immediate post-war period was fairly uneventful. However, a series of incidents in the 1960s marked the intensification of Argentine sovereignty claims.
  The first of these took place in 1964, when a light plane piloted by Miguel Fitzgerald touched down on the racecourse at Stanley. Leaping from the aircraft, he handed a letter claiming sovereignty to a bemused islander before flying off again. The stunt was timed to coincide with Argentine diplomatic efforts at the UN Decolonisation Committee.
  A more serious incident took place on 28 September 1966 when eighteen young Peronists staged a symbolic invasion of the Islands by hijacking an Aerolíneas Argentinas airliner and landing it in Stanley; the group called this action Operativo Cóndor. There, they raised seven Argentine flags and took four islanders hostage. The planning had been done during a trip to the islands that one of the leaders, Cristina Verrier, had made as a tourist. Before leaving, twenty plotters had been "locked up" for three days at a training camp on a "spiritual retreat." At one point, two of them left the group.
  The airliner left at 12:30 p.m. from Buenos Aires, bound for Río Gallegos with 48 passengers on board, including Argentine Rear Admiral José María Guzmán, who was on his way to Tierra del Fuego, an Argentine territory of which he was governor. Two armed men, Dardo Cabo, 25, and Alejandro Giovenco, entered the flight deck and ordered Commander Ernesto Fernández García to change course toward the Falklands. Two of the men approached Guzmán in the cabin and told him of the hijacking, and one of his aides-de-camp attempted to get his pistol, but he was struck down.
  The airplane landed at 8:42 a.m. in Port Stanley, behind the house occupied by Governor Sir Cosmo Dugal Patrick Thomas Haskard, who was away from the island. The pilot attempted to land at the racecourse but the plane hit telegraph poles, and the undercarriage sank into the mud. Islanders, assuming that the plane was in trouble, rushed to assist but found themselves taken hostage by the hijackers (included in the group of four was a young police sergeant, Terry Peck, who became a local hero in the Falklands War). The Argentines exited the airplane by rope and formed themselves in front of the craft in the form of a fan: They hoisted seven Argentine flags. They then sang the Argentine national anthem, attempting at first to turn authority over the island to Guzmán, who refused the offer.
  Les Gleadell, acting Governor of the Falkland Islands, ordered that the DC-4 be surrounded. He received three of the invaders, who announced that they had as much right as anyone to be there and in reply were firmly told that they should disarm and give up. The result of this meeting was an agreement that seven men, including Peck and Captain Ian Martin, commanding a four-man Royal Marines detachment, should be exchanged for the hostages aboard the aircraft. The 26 passengers were then allowed to disembark and sent to lodge with local families, as the island had no hotel. On being taken past the governor's residence, Guzmán laughingly commented: "Mi casa" ("my house").
  After a bitterly cold night in the aircraft, which contained only brandy, wine, orange juice and a few biscuits, the kidnappers surrendered. They were kept locked up in an annex to St Mary's Church for a week until they were put aboard an Argentine ship, the Bahía Buen Suceso, which had lingered outside the harbor awaiting conclusion of the affair. The men were tried in Argentina on crimes that included illegal deprivation of freedom, possession of weapons of war, illegal association, piracy, and robbery in the open. The leaders were sentenced to three years in prison and the others to nine months.
  On October of the same year a group of Argentine naval special forces conducted covert landings from the submarine ARA Santiago del Estero. The 12-man team, which landed some 40 kilometre
caption: Miguel L. Fitzgerald flew to the Falkland Islands in a light aircraft in 1964 and 1968.  (Originally published by Crónica, 9 September 1964.)
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